USA – FLORIDA Law and Practice Contributed by: Elisha D. Roy and Carolyn Ware, Sasser, Cestero & Roy
award one parent with ultimate decision-making on that issue. Unless there is evidence that the order would harm the child, the court may not choose one parent’s religious beliefs and practices over another’s. This would vio ‑ late the First Amendment. Mesa v Mesa , 652 So. 2d 456, 457 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995). Parental alienation is a bit of a misnomer but is really about gate-keeping behaviours. Florida courts recog ‑ nise that parental alienation, if proved by competent, substantial evidence, can justify a post-dissolution request for a modification of a time-sharing designa ‑ tion in a final judgment. See McKinnon v Staats , 899 So. 2d 357, 361 (Fla. 1st DCA 2005). Parental aliena ‑ tion is not a crime in Florida; however, if the court finds evidence of parental alienation, it may result in reduced timesharing. In Florida, children are able to give testimony in family law cases, but it is disfavoured and unusual. If a party wants a child to testify, they must seek permissions pursuant to Rule 12.407 Florida Family Law Rules of Procedure to bring them to court or even just to have them deposed. Generally, courts do not want to put children in the position to testify “against” a parent or in a position to believe they have a say or choice in the result of a court case, and perhaps more importantly, do not want to put a child in a position of “picking” a parent. As such, child testimony is generally very rare and limited to fact-based issues that usually sur ‑ round behaviours or incidents a child has witnessed. Generally, the court will do an in-camera examination of a child outside of the presence of the parents and their counsel to avoid the child needing to testify in the presence of their parents. Florida also has a fairly strict relocation restriction with a statute dedicated to if and when same will be granted. Florida Statute 61.13001 provides very spe ‑ cific terms that a parent seeking to move greater than 50 miles from where they lived at the time of Final Judgment must follow. Generally speaking, unless the other parent already lives outside that area OR is not involved in the child’s life, relocations are rarely granted. However, effective 1 July 2023, if a parent was living greater than 50 miles from the other parent
at the entry of a Final Judgment and they move within the 50-mile radius, that is a substantial change in cir ‑ cumstances to warrant a modification of timesharing. So, if a parent was living out of state and moves closer to the child, they have the ability to modify their time ‑ sharing schedule for more time with the child. 3.4 ADR in Child Law Matters In Florida, different from many other jurisdictions, all aspects of the dissolution process, namely parenting, equitable distribution, alimony, child support and any other matters to resolve for the family, come before one judge and are typically all decided at the same time. While sometimes cases may be bifurcated, it is unusual for the financial issues to be bifurcated from the child-related issues as they all work off each other. What is distributed to each party must be known to determine incomes for the need and ability to pay the component of alimony. The alimony amount and time ‑ sharing schedule must be known to determine child support. To encourage resolution of issues without court involvement, mediation is required in most cases before ever appearing in front of a judge. Mediation is a process, generally speaking, where each party has their own attorney and a mediating professional (either a lawyer or someone certified by the Supreme Court) serves as a conduit between the parties to seek amicable resolution of their issues. If that is possible, a marital settlement agreement and parenting plan are usually signed by the parties at the conclusion of mediation and, other than a very brief final hearing for the court to enter a final judgment, the litigation is concluded. Sometimes more than one mediation is necessary to resolve a matter, but mediation and amicable resolution is generally quite successful in Florida. As mentioned above, arbitration is not permitted in Florida for child-related cases. The parties can agree to use a private judge to resolve child-related issues. Collaborative Law Process. §§ 61.55-61.58, Fla. Stat. established the Collaborative Law Process in Florida, which allows parties to settle their cases via a col ‑ laborative contract. Each party has a lawyer, and the lawyer and the parties contract to this confidential
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